Thesis (M. Phil.)--University of Hong Kong, 2001. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 203-206).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2001. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 258-272). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (M.A.)--Kutztown State College. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 45-06, page: 2922. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-97).

The aim of this thesis is to explicate the concepts of ideology and science; in particular, social science, in the work of Marx and in later Marxism. These concepts are standardly discussed in close association with each other in both Marxist and non-Marxist contexts. Yet, in the literature on Marxism at any rate, the kind of significance they have for each other has been widely misunderstood. Historically the most important expression of such misunderstanding is the tendency in writings influenced by, or within the ambit of, 'Western Marxism' to assume that the central question concerns the precise nature of the distinction between science and ideology as rival or alternative forms of cognition. Answers to this question have generally sought to distinguish them in terms of cognitive success and failure, with ideology as the dark shadow or distorted 'other' of science. It will be shown that in relation to Marx's thought this mode of question and answer is wholly misconceived. Science and ideology function there as categorially diverse notions which are such that the problem of how to demarcate their individual shares of a common field of reference cannot arise. Problems that do pressingly arise in connection with this body of thought include the following. How does science succeed in being ideological, when it does? More specifically, how is the ideological status of Marx's own social science to be conceived? To answer these questions one has to recognise the diversity of the ways in which ideology operates and to devise theoretical models which can capture that diversity. In what follows, three basic models, labelled for convenience 'semantic', 'syntactic', and 'dialectical', will be distinguished. It will be argued that the dialectical model is the appropriate one for understanding Marx's social science. The account of the concept of ideology given here is based on that contained in my book The Real World of Ideology. ' The account there has been abridged in order to bring out what are for present purposes its essential features. A copy of the book is enclosed with the thesis. The basic plan of the thesis is as follows. The first chapter is concerned, as an essential preliminary, with explicating the conception of ideology that operates in the work of Marx and in 'classical Marxism'. The second chapter deals with a basic misconception of this legacy which has a special relevance in the present context. This is the idea that ideology is essentially to be understood as an epistemological category. The way is then clear to pose the question of the nature and status of Marx's social science. This is done in the third chapter, where it also proves possible to dispose of the claims of the syntactic model as the basis for an answer. The semantic model is a much more serious candidate and requires extended discussion. The paradigmatic version of the model in Western Marxism is the conception of Marxist social science as a 'critical theory of society'. The fourth chapter discusses the prototype of such interpretations in the work of the 'Frankfurt School' theorists. The next two chapters (5 and 6) deal with more recent attempts by writers in the British analytical tradition to vindicate the project of Marxist social critique. The failure of the project in all these versions clears the ground for an inquiry into the claims of the dialectical model. This is pursued in chapters 7 and 8, paying close attention to the evidence on the subject yielded by Marx's writings. The result is to establish the dialectical scheme as the basic instrument for understanding his social theory. In the final chapter developments treated earlier at the level of relations between ideas are set in a historical context. This enables the dialectical thesis to be grasped in a richer, more solid setting, and enables it in turn to shed its light on the question of the overall shape of the Marxist intellectual tradition.

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Around the 1950s an explosive population growth started in the Third World. Parallel with the population growth a global network grew up advocating population control and limited population growth. Sweden had a unique place in that network through a pioneering role promoting the issue in the UN organization. During the 20th century Sweden was a pioneer country in terms of initiatives for population control. Ceylon family planing pilot project was something new in a time when other donors considered family planning be too controversial area for bilateral aid projects. The aim of this thesis is to answer ”What is the affinity between the ideological principles behind the Swedish welfare policy and the Swedish initiatives to population control?" and "Does Sweden express a unique overpopulation discourse influenced by the ideological principles behind the Swedish welfare policy?"In the thesis I examine whether it is an affinity between the Swedish welfare ideology and the Swedish initiative to population control. I do this partly by examining how Alva Myrdal – one of the ideological architects behind the swedish welfare state – implemented ideological principles in an international political context and partly how the welfare state's ideological principles took expression in the swedish family planing aid. I also investegating whether it is possible to interpret an overpopulation discourse shaped by the experiences of Swedish welfare policy and what in that case characterizes it. By using  the concept ”governmentality” I distinguishes different key actors in the swedish family planing organisation and thereby I problematize the concept overpopulation discourse. The thesis demonstrates fragmented perceptions within the swedish family planing organisation where a prophylactic line inspired by the welfare ideologies end up getting preference based on its benefits to get political legitimacy. The prophylactic line promoted to change peoples preferences towards population control instead of using coercion which has ideological affinity with the Swedish welfare policy. One of my conclusions is that local circumstances in South Asia like high rate of illiteracy and ” widespread apathy” (not my expression) among the locals made key actors in the family planing aid sceptical towards the efficency of using profylactic policies in the third world. That partly explains the swedish family planing aid shift towards suporting more coercive methods during the 1960s.Keywords: Alva Myrdal, Ceylonproject, Welfare ideology, Population control, govermentality, overpopulation discourse, 20th century.

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